Muscle & Fitness/Hers: Elevate your lunge: add a balance element to the stationary lunge and your legs will feel the burn!

FindArticles > Muscle & Fitness/Hers > Jan-Feb, 2005 > Article > Print friendly

Elevate your lunge: add a balance element to the stationary lunge and your legs will feel the burn!

Sheila M. Clancy

EVERY WOMAN who has ever worked to shape her glutes and legs should be intimately familiar with lunges. We do them across the room, with dumbbells in hand, stepping up on a bench or even standing in place. We do thousands and thousands of them, and for good reason: Lunges are a great exercise to work the quadriceps, glutes and hamstrings while mimicking real-life movements.

Smith-machine stationary lunges are a fantastic introductory move. The machine helps you control your movement, and you don't have to step forward or backward, allowing you to balance the weight more easily. You simply use a split stance--your feet spaced about hip-width apart, one foot forward, the other behind you. Slowly drop your hips straight toward the floor until your knees form 90-degree angles and your back knee almost touches down. Slowly push back up to the start position. Once you complete your reps, switch legs and repeat.

This movement quickly becomes easy, so you'll want to increase the difficulty. With this variation, instead of placing your back foot on the floor, you place it on a flat bench behind you. This requires added strength and balance while shifting the emphasis to your front leg, and you'll no doubt feel the increased intensity.

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

Placing your back foot up on a bench changes the mechanics of the exercise. While the quads, hamstrings and glutes work hard in both versions, the abductors and adductors help stabilize the body when your balance is challenged. The bench-aided lunge is also more intense because almost all your weight is on your front leg, which does most of the work.

Doing an exercise in an unstable position really challenges your body--in this case, it works all the muscles of your hips, knees and ankles. Adding a balance component can elevate a movement from intermediate to advanced and should be done only by an experienced trainee.

1) GET SET: With the bar across your shoulders, lift your back leg onto the bench.

START POSITION

* Adjust the bar on the Smith machine to sit below shoulder level. Place a flat bench about 12-18 inches behind the path of the bar.

* Position the bar across your shoulders so it's stable.

* Place your feet about hip-width apart, toes facing forward. Step forward with your front foot and lift your back leg to rest your toes on the bench behind you. Your front foot should be far enough forward so that when you're in the down position, your knee is directly above your heel.

* Keep your shoulders directly over your hips.

* Have a spotter assist you with the setup and execution of this movement.

2) DRIVE TIME: Squeeze through your quads and glutes to return to the top.

EXECUTION

* Unhook the bar. Keep your torso close to vertical and the majority of your weight on your front leg as you descend into the lunge.

* Inhale and slowly lower your body until your front knee forms about a 90-degree angle.

* Push through your front heel to return to the start position. Your forward leg should do the bulk of the work; your back leg is mainly for balance.

* Exhale as you near the top of the rep and repeat.

* Use a smooth, even tempo. Avoid bouncing in the bottom position, and don't lock out your knee at the top.

* Switch sides and repeat for complete development of both legs.